Lignocellulosic plant material, herein also called feedstock, is a renewable source of energy in the form of sugars that can be converted into valuable products e.g. sugars or bio-fuel, such as bioethanol. During this process, (ligno- or hemi-)cellulose present in the feedstock, such as wheat straw, corn stover, rice hulls, etc., is converted into reducing sugars by (hemi)cellulolytic enzymes, which then are optionally converted into valuable products such as ethanol by microorganisms like yeast, bacteria and fungi.
Since the (hemi)cellulose is crystalline and entrapped in a network of lignin, the conversion into reducing sugars is in general slow and incomplete. Typically, enzymatic hydrolysis of untreated feedstock yields sugars <20% of theoretical quantity. By applying a chemical and thermo-physical pretreatment, the (hemi)cellulose is more accessible for the (hemi)cellulolytic enzymes, and thus conversions go faster and at higher yields.
A typical ethanol yield from glucose, derived from pretreated corn stover, is 40 gallons of ethanol per 1000 kg of dry corn stover (Badger, P, Ethanol from cellulose: a general review, Trends in new crops and new uses, 2002, J. Janick and A. Whipkey (eds.) ASHS Press, Alexandria, Va.) or 0.3 g ethanol per g feedstock. The maximum yield of ethanol on cellulose base is approximately 90%.
Cellulolytic enzymes—most of them are produced by species like Trichoderma, Humicola and Aspergillus—are commercially used to convert pretreated feedstock into a mash containing insoluble (hemi)cellulose, reducing sugars made thereof, and lignin. Thermostable cellulolytic enzymes derived from Rasamsonia, have been used for degrading lignocellulosic feedstock and these enzymes are known for their thermostability, see WO 2007/091231. The produced mash is used in a fermentation during which the reducing sugars are converted into yeast biomass (cells), carbon dioxide and ethanol. The ethanol produced in this way is called bio-ethanol.
The common production of sugars from pretreated lignocelullosic feedstock, the hydrolysis also called liquefaction, presaccharification or saccharification, typically takes place during a process lasting 6 to 168 hours (Kumar, S. Chem. Eng. Technol. 32 (2009) 517-526) under elevated temperatures of 45 to 50° C. and non-sterile conditions. During this hydrolysis, the cellulose present is partly (typically 30 to 95%, dependable on enzyme activity and hydrolysis conditions) converted into reducing sugars. In case of inhibition of enzymes by compounds present in the pretreated feedstock and by released sugars and to minimize thermal inactivation, this period of elevated temperature is minimized as much as possible.
The fermentation following the hydrolysis takes place in a separate preferably anaerobic process step, either in the same or in a different vessel, in which temperature is adjusted to 30 to 33° C. (mesophilic process) to accommodate growth and ethanol production by microbial biomass, commonly yeasts. During this fermentation process, the remaining (hemi)cellulosic material is converted into reducing sugars by the enzymes already present from the hydrolysis step, while microbial biomass and ethanol are produced. The fermentation is finished once (hemi)cellulosic material is converted into fermentable sugars and all fermentable sugars are converted into ethanol, carbon dioxide and microbial cells. This may take up to 6 days. In general, the overall process time of hydrolysis and fermentation may amount up to 13 days.
The so-obtained fermented mash consists of non-fermentable sugars, non-hydrolysable (hemi)cellulosic material, lignin, microbial cells (most common yeast cells), water, ethanol, dissolved carbon dioxide. During the successive steps, ethanol is distilled from the mash and further purified. The remaining solid suspension is dried and used as, for instance, burning fuel, fertilizer or cattle feed.
WO 2010/080407 suggests treating cellulosic material with a cellulase composition under anaerobic conditions. Removal or exclusion of reactive oxygen species may improve the performance of cellulose hydrolyzing enzyme systems. Hydrolysis of cellulosic material, e.g. lignocellulose, by an enzyme composition can be reduced by oxidative damage to components of the enzyme composition and/or oxidation of the cellulosic material by, for example, molecular oxygen.
WO 2009/046538 discloses a method for treating lignocellulosic feedstock plant materials to release fermentable sugars using an enzymatic hydrolysis process for treating the materials performed under vacuum and producing a sugar rich process stream comprising reduced amounts of volatile sugar/fermentation inhibiting compounds such as furfural and acetic acid. Apart from removing volatile inhibitory compounds, other compounds and/or molecules that are also removed include nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide.
With each batch of feedstock, enzymes are added to maximize the yield and rate of fermentable sugars released from the pretreated lignocellulosic feedstock during the given process time. In general, costs for enzymes production, feedstock to ethanol yields and investments are major cost factors in the overall production costs (Kumar, S. Chem. Eng. Technol. 32 (2009) 517-526). Thus far, cost of enzyme usage reduction is achieved by applying enzyme products from a single or from multiple microbial sources (WO 2008/008793) with broader and/or higher (specific) hydrolytic activity which use aims at a lower enzyme need, faster conversion rates and/or a higher conversion yields, and thus at overall lower bioethanol production costs. This requires large investments in research and development of these enzyme products. In case of an enzyme product composed of enzymes from multiple microbial sources, large capital investments are needed for production of each single enzyme compound.
It is therefore desirable to improve the above process involving hydrolysis and fermentation.